The Five: The Lives of Jack the Ripper's Women by Hallie Rubenhold

genre: non-fiction, history

While most people have at least heard the name Jack the Ripper, and maybe even know he was a serial killer in Victorian England in the late 1880s, I'd say it's highly unlikely that one also knows the names of his victims, let alone anything about them that's true.  The Five is determined to change that.  One by one, our author describes these women, their histories and challenges, what we know, what we don't know, and what we can make pretty educated guesses about.  The idea that all these women were prostitutes, that they might somehow be deserving of their gruesome fate, is very explicitly and intentionally debunked.  As the author says in her conclusion, "the victims of Jack the Ripper were never "just prostitutes"; they were daughters, wives, mothers, sisters and lovers.  They were women.  They were human beings, and surely that in itself is enough."

I really appreciated that these five women and their personal stories were also used as a framework to understanding the lives of all lower class women in Victorian England.  Just to be a woman during this time period at all meant that you were a second class citizen and that you could assume that your "morals" or choices were absolutely expected to be fodder for public knowledge.  The double standard of Victorian prejudice is so frustrating and had such a deep impact on the lives of women whose circumstances fall out of their control due to illness, trauma, abuse or any other number of things.  To have your only choices be the workhouse or the street, to be reviled by your loved ones, to be constantly hungry and cold - all of these things were the real experiences of so very many women.  I love that this account sorts through the interviews, the courtroom statements, the letters and tries to create truth based on primary sources rather than the sensationalized and so often completely false or twisted narratives in the papers at the time.  It's not a pretty story, by any means.  We are down in the gutter with these women and we do learn about the life of a prostitute at the time and occasionally the narration does dig a bit deeper into popular history when there are gaps in a women's timeline but overall I found this a very readable and very interesting look at both a small group of women who deserve to be known for more than being murdered, as well as a broader look at a place and time.